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Diplomacy (Civ5)
Introduction: Diplomacy is important in Civilization V. The world is huge and filled with other civilizations whose leaders are just as cunning and determined as you are (or more). Some are honest; others are liars. Some are warlike and others prefer peace. But all want to win. You can accomplish a lot through diplomacy. You can gain allies and isolate your enemies. You can create defensive and offensive pacts. You can increase your technology through cooperative research ventures. You can end wars that are going badly for you. You can bluff the credulous and bully the timid. And, finally, if you make enough allies, you can achieve a Diplomatic victory! Conducting diplomacy Diplomacy may be conducted throughout the game, with all entities you've already discovered in the world. All of those will appear in the list in your Diplomatic screen. When you first discover a City-state, they will give you a small gift. Diplomatic contacts may be initiated by you, or by the AI (during their turn). You can talk to leaders even if you're at war with them, albeit only to try and negotiate peace. Embassies Negotiations with civilizations are possible from the start. However, certain high-level actions (like signing treaties) will only become possible after certain Technologies have been researched. Also, in Gods and Kings most treaties (except a Declaration of Friendship) may only be signed after you establish Embassies in each other's capitals. This becomes possible after discovering Writing, and is usually quite easy. Note that Embassies are closed when you enter a war with each other, and later have to be reopened with another agreement. City-states diplomacy Diplomatic relations are pretty straight-forward, and depend entirely on your amount of influence with the particular city-state. They will often approach you with 'missions', if your influence with them is at least Neutral. You, on the other hand, may attempt to bribe them with Gifts, bully them, or you may decide to declare War to them. For more information and details - check the City-state article. There's only one catch really when city-states are concerned, and that's the fact that if you're at war with their Patron (ally), any Peace negotiations with the state are blocked automatically. If you want peace, you'll need first to make peace with their Patron (and usually peace with city-state allies is included in the peace treaty already). Diplomatic relations with other civilizations Diplomacy with other civs is far more tricky than with city-states, because they don't depend simply on a scale of influence - they have their own agenda. A civilization may decide to attack you without any warning, even though they're friendly with you! Levels of relations Unlike the neat scale of city-state influence, relations to civilizations are represented by several broad levels: *Neutral - the civ is neither friendly, nor hostile. Negotiations will be relatively easy. *Friendly - they are well disposed towards you, and you may hope to take advantage of that in negotiations. *Guarded - they are wary of you and your intentions. Negotiations will be difficult. *Hostile - they are angry with you, and almost ready to declare war. Negotiations will be almost impossible. What influences relations There are so many factors here, that it is almost impossible to describe all in a concise way, but let me try: Relations will improve in these cases: *Acts of goodwill - if you perform any of these, relations will tend to improve. Such acts are: freeing a slave (any Civilian unit) belonging to them; Sharing a hostile plot of a third party (acquired via spying); Gifting resource or Gold (many times they'll simply ask for that, and if you grant their request, relations will improve). Liberating a city belonging to them will give a huge boost in relations, of course. *Declaring Friendship to a civilization they're Friends with *Fighting a common enemy. Often they will ask your cooperation in a war they intend to start - if you agree to fight alongside them, relations will improve. *Fulfilling promises. Often in diplomatic contacts they require some sort of promise of you (for example not to settle near their territory, or to stop spying on them). If you promise something, and fulfil your promise, you show that you can be trusted. *Trading. Every time you strike a deal with a civilization, relations improve a little. After all, you can't be that bad if your traders are there, can you? *Ideology. If you share a common end-game ideology, you get closer. *Religion. If most of their cities share your Religion, you get closer. Relations will worsen in these cases: *Acts of bad will. This may include Denouncing the other civilization, bullying city-states they protect; stealing their technologies, and being discovered when doing it. *Common borders - if you share border with a civilization, or own lands they have their eye on, your interests will conflict. Relations may drop, and the other nation may contemplate treachery and sudden wars, aimed at seizing territory and resources. The effect is more severe the longer the common border. *Settling cities near other nations' territory. They will consider that a provocation, and ask you to seize doing it. *Becoming Friendly with a nation they're hostile towards. *Breaking promises you've made to them. For example, promising to start a war together, asking for some time, then when the time to start comes - you say your reconsidered. Or any other of the above examples. *Building a Wonder before them tends to irritate them. *Competing for the same City-state's influence *Ideology. Adopting an ideology different from theirs will result in drifting apart. Diplomatic incidents Sometimes game actions may result in what we call in the real world a 'Diplomatic incident'. They will prompt a confrontation with the other nation, and you will have a choice to make. If you're the perpetrator, they'll protest, and you can appease them, or defy them. If they're the perpetrator, you may choose to overlook the incident, or promise satisfaction. The outcome for relations in both cases is obvious. The most common cases diplomatic incidents occur are when spies are discovered while acting, and when a city-state under protection has been bullied. Note that in the second case, if they're the perpetrator, you have to choose to either preserve relationships with the civilization and lose influence with the City-state (also revoke the protection), OR you may damage relations with the civilization, but preserve those with the City-state. Diplomatic actions You can perform a wide array of diplomatic actions, many of these quite practical, like trading, but some - purely diplomatic, like Declarations, Demands, etc. Trading One of the most often practiced interaction. You can set up trade agreements with any nation you'r not at war with. All trade agreements last for a period of 30 turns, after which they need to be renovated (or sometimes renegotiated). * You can trade Strategic and Luxury Resources for Gold, or for other resources. Depending on the level of relations between you, they may agree or not to more beneficial trade conditions. A typical example is when you sell to them a Luxury resource - if they're Neutral, they'll give you not more than 5 per turn (GPT); if they're Friendly, they may give you as much as 7 GPT; if they're Guarded - not more than 4 GPT. Have in mind that when you try to buy a Luxury they have only one count of, they'll require a lot in return. Else, if they have more than one count, they would often agree for a single count of another Luxury in return. *Cities may also be 'traded' between nations. Note, however, that a nation will part with a city only with great reluctance - you either have to press them military, or offer cities in return. If you acquire a city via diplomacy, same rules apply as if you conquered it (without the whole mess of war, losing troops and killing part of the city's Population). Trading is of vital importance in the game. Your nation can't usually become so strong economically as to be completely self-sufficient, and will always need to exchange goods with other nations. The most benefit from trade comes in the form of from selling your excess Luxuries, and additional from buying Luxuries you have no access to currently. Strategic resources that you're lacking are also a very important trade item. Declaring Friendship If you want to get closer with the other nation, you may invite them to make a joint Declaration of Friendship. Or they may invite you. Such declaration is obviously only possible if your relations are already at least Neutral, possibly Friendly. The first result, besides improved relations, will be that other nations they're friendly with will draw closer to you, while other they're hostile with will drift apart. Second result is that the other nation will become more open to satisfying any demands you make of them. Use that to your advantage. Finally, Research Agreements become possible between you and the other nation. Demands You may make many demands of another nation. Whether or not they comply will depend on relations: * Demand resources, Gold or cities * Demand that they stop settling near your territory * Demand that they stop spying on you * Demand that they stop spreading their religion to your cities Other nations, on their turn, may also demand stuff from you. Note that if you promise something, for example not to settle near them, and later break the promise, relations between you will worsen. Denouncing You may Denounce another civilization (or they may denounce you), stating for all diplomatic society to hear that you're a bad, baaaad person and they shouldn't trust you. A denunciation will immediately worsen relations with the nation you've denounced, and also with their friends. At the same time, it may improve relations with other nations that aren't on good terms with the denounced nation. When another nation denounces you, other leaders will become more wary of you for a time. This may result in a drop in relations, although it's usually not enough on its own to lead to such nasty things as wars. Signing treaties After you research certain technologies, and open an Embassy in the other nation, You'll be able to conduct advanced diplomatic activities, known as signing Treaties. All of them are beneficial for you, and getting the other nation to accept them will depend on relations. Open borders This is the first treaty available, and requires the Civil service technology. When signed, you and the other nation open each others' borders. From there on, military and civilian units will be able to freely move through the others' territory, and actually use it as their own territory. That means that you/they can use the road network for fast movement, and that you/they may Heal in that territory as if it were your own. A very important diplomatic agreement, the Open Borders is actually the most often signed treaty in the game. It is possible for this treaty to be one-sided (i.e. only one nation to grant access to the other to their territory), but this only happens in extreme circumstances. Defensive Pact Requires the Chivalry technology. When you enter such a pact, the two countries effectively become Allies. When one of them enters a war, the other one automatically enters the war as well, on the side of their ally. All allied City-states also enter the war on the relevant sides. Obviously, signing a Defensive Pact with a powerful nation can make enemies think twice before attacking you (since this will automatically put them in war with another nation). However, it's pretty difficult to get a nation to agree signing this Treaty. Also, be wary when signing with a less powerful nation - they may get you into wars you never intended! Research agreement This treaty becomes possible after researching Education, and after declaring Friendship with a nation. You can then decide to enter into a Research Agreement with them - a process when scientists from both nations get together and start working on a common project and exchange experience and information. To start the agreement, both nations need to expend some to fund the research. The quantity starts at 250 and increases the more you advance in Eras. The Agreement is complete after a set amount of turns, at which point both nations get an instant boost in Scientific points, which apply to their current project. If there are points left, they will apply to a random technology you haven't researched yet. Certain Wonders and Social policies may boost the amount of points you get from Agreements. Note that if you declare War on each other, the agreement will get cancelled! Research agreements are a great way to boost your technological advancement, especially if your civilization isn't very good at that. However, be mindful that the other civilization will also get a boost - if they're well under way to a Scientific victory, entering a Research agreement with them might not be such a good idea. War and peace War is an integral part of the game, and nothing to get excited about. You just array your troops and fight. Note that when declaring War, all Allies of the sides automatically enter the war as well. Also, if one of the sides make new allies when the war is already under way, the new allies also enter the war immediately. All Trade agreements and Treaties active at the time are cancelled automatically. More interesting is the way you negotiate Peace, and I'll offer some observations about that here. First of all, Peace depends on the two sides' will to continue fighting. If you have started the war and decide that you've achieved enough, you may offer peace to the other side. If they have started and think that they've achieved enough - they may offer you peace. Also, if in any case a side thinks the war isn't going well for it, they may sue for peace. That may often prove impossible - if you sue for peace and they believe they're winning the war, or that they haven't achieved their goals yet, they will refuse to even attempt peace negotiations. Peace negotiations are a lot like trading, where the two sides attempt to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement to end the hostilities. The crucial factor is who's winning, and how badly is the other side loosing. The worse the situation, the more they'll be prepared to offer, or in the other case, the more they'll demand from you to end the war. Cities are often part of peace negotiations, and the most likely scenario when a nation will agree to part with them. When a Peace treaty is signed, all units are expelled immediately from the other country's territory (unless an Open Borders agreement is part of the treaty), and any cities that were traded away become part of their new owners' territory. A Peace treaty lasts for 10 turns, and during it the two sides may not Declare War on each other.